Generally, when containers are being transported in a cargo vessel or ship, the containers are stacked on the deck of the ship and secured by lashing rod assemblies in order to prevent undesired movement or toppling down of the stacked containers. The inventor of this application has proposed several such lashing rod assemblies, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,101,130B2, 7,422,400B2, 7,575,403B2, 9,499,237B1, etc.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, each of the lashing rod assemblies 3 has an upper end 501 coupled to a corner casting 601 of a shipping container 6, and a lower end 401 coupled to a conventional eye plate 1 mounted to a platform 200 on a mounting post 2. The mounting post 2 may be secured on the deck or a lashing bridge on the desk. The eye plate 1 has a plurality of mounting holes 101. Normally, each of the lashing rod assemblies 3 includes a turnbuckle 4 and a lashing rod 5. The turnbuckle 4 has an upper segment 44 and a lower segment 45 which are movable relative to each other and which can be secured to each other so as to tighten the lashing rod 5. The lashing rod 5 has an upper end which serves as the upper end 501 of the respective lashing rod assembly 3, and a lower end segment 502 coupled to the upper segment 44 of the turnbuckle 4. The lower segment 45 of the turnbuckle 4 has two lugs 451 each having a lug hole. In the lower end 401 of the lashing rod assembly 3, a pin 43 extends through the respective mounting hole 101 and has two opposite ends which extend respectively through the lug holes and which are secured respectively to the lugs 451 to thereby couple the lower segment 45 of the turnbuckle 4 to the eye plate 1.
In FIG. 3, the shipping containers 6 and the lashing rod assemblies 3 on the ship are shown by solid lines. When the ship is subjected to an impact shown by an arrow (F), the shipping containers 6, as shown by dashed lines, are likely tilted in an opposite direction. In this case, because the eye plate 1 are non-movably mounted to the mounting post 2, the tilting movement of the shipping containers 6 may cause fracture of the shipping containers 6 or the lashing rod assemblies 3 (see also FIG. 4).
In addition, because the turnbuckle 4 may be undesirably turned relative to the conventional eye plate 1, the distance between two adjacent turnbuckles 4 may be greatly varied during tightening or untightening of the lashing rod assemblies 3, and thus to cause harm and injury to an operator.
DE 20 2017 0103 865 U1 also discloses a lasing rod assembly.